Meet the team: Dan Willis

As Vend customers you probably haven’t had much direct contact with our remarkable team of developers. But indirectly, every Vend user interacts with our developers every time a sale is processed, an order is placed, or a cool new feature is tested. After all, it is their labour that makes Vend one of the wonders of the world cloud.

On that note, this is Dan. He’s pretty cool. Plus he’s a one of our behind the scenes wizards. Currently he is working on a new credit card payment integration, and addressing that awesome list of feature requests submitted by our beloved customers. It’s nice putting a face to all that beautiful code, isn’t it?

They tell me my name is Daniel, or Dan, or something. I’m okay with that.

2. What do you do at Vend?

So that part is a little more clear. I’m an Application Developer.

That means I develop (fix, improve, grow, speed up) the application (the amazing, many-splendoured, well-oiled machine that is the Vend POS).

I also assume the slightly less noble (but no less important) role of being the person who will probably lose to you at the pool table. Except the time I beat Lance twice in succession.

3. What were you doing before Vend?

Before Vend, I was busy experiencing poor retail point-of-sale experiences in ignorant bliss. Now I can’t shop at any store that has a non-Vend POS without being painfully aware of how much better everyone’s experience would be if the retailer were using Vend.

That, and I was an Interaction Developer at Vodafone.

4. Why Vend?

I was already aware of the Vend product and was really impressed with Vend’s completely different, innovative and refreshing approach to retail point-of-sale. So when the opportunity arose to work at Vend, the decision was almost a no-brainer. But Vend made it awesomer still by having a super-excellent team of fun and clever people. So here I am.

5. Tell us something interesting about yourself.

This is a difficult task.

Initially, I considered stating that I play bass guitar in a band, or that I ride a motorcycle in the rain with an open-face helmet, or that I’ve lived in Switzerland. But it’s not necessarily what one does that makes one interesting but rather what one is. Perfectly uninteresting people can do some really crazy fun stuff.

So am I interesting, despite what I do? Therein lies the difficulty. This is entirely subjective. I’ve lived with myself for my whole life, and so have become quite accustomed to who I am; the nuances, quirks, and oddities of who I am are incredibly familiar, and so are hardly interesting to me at all.

And what one person might find interesting about me might be of no interest to someone else. This leaves me at a loss. I feel I am quite unable to tell you all something interesting about myself. Although I really wish I could.

6. If Vend were a video game, what would it be?

The problem with video games is that the best ones are old. In the world of POS, Vend is new. But Vend is best.

That, and I probably need to play a wider variety of video games before I can make an educated call on this one.

A former retailer (and unabashed nerd) who daydreamed about integrated POS software, Tara now delightedly recruits, promotes, and enables Vend's wonderful channel of add-ons and partners. An ardent sharer of Vend news and events, connect with Tara on Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+ and never miss an opportunity to meet up with the affable Vend team.